The present invention is directed to integrated circuits and their processing for the manufacture of semiconductor devices. More particularly, the invention provides a method and device for an oxidized dielectric in a semiconductor device. Merely by way of example, the invention has been applied to low temperature plasma oxidation of silicon for forming a gate dielectric in an MOS device. But it would be recognized that the invention has a much broader range of applicability. For example, the invention can be applied to other silicon devices such as bipolar devices or memory device, e.g. DRAM, Flash memory, MONOS, or other non-volatile memory devices.
Integrated circuits or “ICs” have evolved from a handful of interconnected devices fabricated on a single chip of silicon to millions of devices. In order to achieve improvements in complexity and circuit density, the size of the smallest device feature has become smaller with each generation of ICs. Increasing circuit density has not only improved the complexity and performance of ICs but has also provided lower cost parts to the consumer. On the other hand, making devices smaller is very challenging, as each process used in IC fabrication has a limit. That is to say, a given process typically only works down to a certain feature size, and then either the process or the device layout needs to be changed. An example of such a limit is dielectric films used for the manufacture of integrated circuits in a cost effective and efficient way.
In modern integrated circuit, dielectric films often form important components. For example, thin gate dielectric in an MOS transistor and the tunneling dielectric in a memory device play important roles in device performance and reliability. Thick dielectrics are often used for device isolation, such as in shallow trench isolation or interlayer isolation. Conventionally, thick dielectric films are often formed using chemical vapor deposition (CVD), whereas thin dielectrics are formed by thermal oxidation of silicon. As device dimension becomes smaller, it becomes increasingly difficult to use conventional techniques for forming dielectrics to meet device requirements. These and other limitations are described throughout the present specification and more particularly below.
From the above, it is seen that an improved technique for processing semiconductor devices is desired.